Lego Building IdeasToy BuildingBuilding & BlocksBricks Big000 BricksBricks PackLego Party Ideas For BoysLego IdeasBlocks TightForward"Big Box of Blocks" - 1,000 Toy Bricks - Tight Fit, Compatible with Lego, and priced way less!£12.99Buy it now watching | View detailsCondition:NewTime left:24d 1h 54mCompiled from US eBay listings. Price per pound is calculated based on number of pounds listed in the item title. Excludes listings at more than $16 per pound. Prices are approximate if the listing uses calculated shipping.You don't have permission to access /p1093418.htmlThis year, I have been slowly building my first Lego collection. My kids and GeekMom Jenny each have tubs of Lego bricks that belong to them individually. I felt left out after visiting Legoland with Jenny, so I started my own collection. When I started buying, I did a lot of research, so that I could get the most out of my investment in a fairly expensive hobby. The first thing I needed, no argument, was bricks.
There are many ways to get a bunch of bricks at once. I started with the Lego Build and Play Box. It’s a great starter set, highlighted by its large storage box, but I’ve found some cheaper options. Here is a breakdown of the average prices I could find: 884 piece Lego Education Brick Set 779384 = 6.1 cents per brick 650 piece Lego Bricks & More Builders of Tomorrow Set 6177 = 6.3 cents per brick (discontinued and no longer available, as of 11/2016) 1,000 piece Lego Build and Play Box 4630 = 11.6cents per brick 650 piece Lego Creative Building Kit 5749 = 7.1 cents per brick 1,600 piece Lego XXL Brick Box 5512 = 13.4 cents per brick (this one has been discontinued, hence its elevated price) As you can see, the Lego Education Brick Set has some serious bang for its buck. It’s a medium size kit, with 11 sizes and 9 colors. The bricks are pretty basic, but that’s the best place to start. I get the most use out of basic shapes, because they are so versatile.
Specialized pieces often have just one purpose, and don’t get used as much. The next thing I needed was a plate. Plates are the foundation that you build your creations on. It’s possible to build on a table, but plates make the whole experience simpler and more fun. Lego makes two 10″ plates, one in green for general use, and one in blue for water scenes. Generally you can find one for about five bucks. There is also an XL gray plate, which measures 15″, but it runs around $15 right now. I own just one green plate, and it is worth its weight in gold. Honorable mention goes to the Brick Separator. Another thing that is invaluable. Saves me so much trouble when disassembling. Though these are often included in specialty kits for free. The last thing I needed was minifigs. There are hundreds of options. As a matter of fact, according to xkcd, there will be more minifigs in the world than people by the year 2019! Where to start then? This is definitely not a case for the basics.
I wanted my minifigs to be special, ones I’d like looking at forever. Since Rory is my favorite character in (I mean, how could I not like a total dork with the same name as me?), I got the Series 10 Roman Commander (read: Centurion). The kids then surprised me with a pile of parts from old minifigs that they didn’t want any more. This was great because I was able to make a few that I liked, and have the ability to change things up. After that, the sky (read: wallet) was the limit. There are so many themed kits it would take an enormous amount of money to get them all. I suggest ignoring sets like the ones, for example, because the scenes are not versatile at all. This makes me sad, because I love everything. I just don’t have room in my house for a permanent installment of Krang’s Lab, and it’s not fun (for me) to keep building the same thing over and over again. There are a couple of exceptions. If you love one of the kits so much that it’s worth its own place in your home, buy away.
GeekMom Jenny has three Lego Architecture sets that have their own shelf in her office. Also, Lego Creator sets are somewhere between free form and regular kits. Each of them makes three things officially. I love the LEGO Creator Fierce Flyer 31004, which has three official builds: an eagle, a beaver, and a scorpion. The only rule of buying Lego products is to never buy something you won’t use. If that means you never buy basic kits because you’d prefer to build a Lego Delorean, that’s okay! Buy things you love, so you will get the most out of them. One last thought: If you are buying for your kids, let them help pick out the pieces they want. Our kids keep a running list of which sets they might like to have. This is mostly so they know what they want to buy with monetary gifts, and so we know which sets to buy them as a surprise or as a gift. (Kit prices are current as of 11/21/2016)LEGO® → System → Creator 1269 << 1270 (Set 2) >> 1271 (1, 2) Chromika Trial Size Bag
Here are some I would like to share. First up, there are plenty of bulk lots around, and what should you pay? Well how much you are prepare to pay is up to you, people will sometimes ask crazy prices for what they are selling, they will sometimes also tell you it weighs more than it actually does and sometimes what you are buying are not 100% LEGO parts. It can also depend on the content, for example, Star Wars is a popular theme and if you are buying it to make the kits to resell, you might want to pay a little more to secure your purchase. Bulk LEGO parts with minifigures in are also worth a bit more. I work off a guide personally of around $20 a kilogram, for bulk parts without minfigs. If it is under this amount, I consider it cheap and a good buy. If it is way over, this it is too expensive and I move on. This is a personal judgment and every buyer to themselves! I also ask the question as to whether it is all genuine LEGO parts. Is there any Megablocks or any other toy in there?
If you are paying by the kilogram you will want it all as close to 100% LEGO parts as possible! So, first part down. You think the price is fair, but now think about what you are actually going to do with it once you have it. Do you want to have extra parts for your own builds? Are you going to let the kids run wild with it? Or are you thinking about maybe turning a little profit and reselling it? Are there kits in the bulk that are worth a pretty penny on their own? I have done this with my sons on a few occasions now and sometimes it can be a good bit of pocket money on the right buy! Firstly, for used bulk, regardless if you are using yourself or reselling, everybody will want it clean whether it is in parts or kits. We will come to cleaning shortly, but just to stay on target, if you are thinking about reselling, think about how you are going to present this to customers. Will you be selling it per kilogram or will you make up the sets and sell them off individually? Both have their merits.
If you decided you are going to sell as bulk per kilogram, it is better to break down into individual blocks and plates, easier to wash and dry. If you are going to sell the kits, you will need to find all the parts. Parting out (separating out individual pieces) LEGO bulk lots means a lot of loose bits and depending on the choice you made above about selling bulk or kits depends on which direction you head here. If you are parting out for bulk, you can proceed to throw every part into some sort of container ready for washing. If you are thinking about sets you will also need to colour sort parts so you can find items from the instruction books. It will have to be done eventually, so it’s up to you whether you do it before the wash or after. Washing LEGO parts has its ups and downs. Here are some pointers. Firstly, washing it in a machine can be done if you find an old pillowcase and load it up, tie up the loose end and put in the machine on a short cycle. Don’t make the water hot as you can end up with warped and melted parts, liquid soap is better also as powder can leave white streaks in places.
I have done a lot of mine by hand in the sink. If you choose a sink make sure you have a grate drain that you can use to save and small parts that sit on the bottom when you drain the water out and drain it very slowly! To concentrate on the sink method for a minute, this is tedious for 40kg amounts, but works well for about 5kg lots. I normally place the LEGO parts into water that is hot to touch, but NOT boiling with some normal dish washing liquid. I have a dish washing scrubber type brush that I pick up a small handful at a time and gently scrub, then pass over to my second sink with a colander in (the things you drain spaghetti and lettuce in), dropping the clean pieces in there. When the colander fills up, rinse with water and I drop on a tea towel a bit at a time. Your first tea towel will get really wet, really quick. I have about 3 tea towels on the go, picking up the first, rolling the pieces back and forth holding the tea towel like a bit of a hammock, then drop it in to the second.
Repeat the motion and drop it back into another colander if you have one. I normally take one and fill it to about an inch under the rim and place it outside in the sun to air dry. By leaving an inch near the top, you can put your hand in and move pieces around once in a while to get the wetter ones near the bottom to the top and so on. After a couple of hours or so, I will bring the LEGO parts inside and place on new tea towels (you could also use bath towels) on a table and pour the LEGO parts out and spread them out thinly. Leaving it for 24 hours will make sure the blocks have no water left inside them for later when you least expect it. Before you start to bag up random parts by the kilogram to sell, or dump it into a large tub ready for random building, cast your eye over the table to look for parts that are impostors. Many bulk lots will have Megablocks, Kreo, no-name clones and even Barbie, He-Man and Hot Wheels in them as well. Now is the time to pull all of this stuff out and leave the genuine parts.
I have personally had bulk lots where the seller has told me there are a handful of parts in 10kg, quickly becoming a container of 2kg worth! That is about $40 odd out of your pocket on fakes, so beware what you are buying. If you have clean bulk and are happy, you can leave us here and happy building! If you are planning to sort parts for yourself or to build particular kits you think are in the middle of all the bulk, read on! People have different techniques for sorting, this is mine and it seems to work well. I colour sort first, black, white, light grey, dark grey etc. until I get colour piles happening. Now is a good time to line up a dozen ice cream containers or any other sort of storage to place your colours into. Once in big colour piles, I will then pull out larger plates, then the 2×4, 2×6, 2x8s of each colour and I stick my plates of the same size together on one end so that they sort of fan out a little. It keeps all the parts together and is neater than being loose.